Thanksgiving Dinner

Another successful year. I contributed some standard favorites - sweet potato casserole, orange sweet potato cups, macaroni and cheese, cranberry sauce, dried cranberry and plum challah, dressing, teas, a peanut butter pie, and - of course - the turkey. And I did it with only one fire this year!! Each year I like to try something new and this year's new addition was a local turkey!!. I bought it from the Mennonites who live in Antietam Battlefield and they processed it for me the day before I picked it up. What a beaut! She was a 18.5 lb gem who thankfully fit into the oven in just a way that I could get another dish in there to bake at the same time. Here are some photos of part of the spread. We also enjoyed a delicious spicy spinach artichoke dip, asparagus, spinach salad, blue hubbard squash soup, tomato tart, broccoli slaw, yam salad, mashed potatoes, Hütte peach cobbler, apple crisp, pecan pie, red velvet brownies, and some delicious wines. Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Radishes - Chinese Red Meat

I was very excited to grow these puppies in the garden this year and finally it cooled enough to make it happen. I still have a small copse of these guys in the yard. I'm borrowing that term from the tree world. The growing process was curious. They first grew with small red roots growing above ground. Then they grew fat and seemed to bury into the ground, at which point they turned green on the outside. I couldn't wait to cut into them - and look how pretty!

Table updates

I was in NYC for a couple of days, so the new table was put on hold. Here is what I was able to get to today and then another photo of how it will potentially look with the top boards on it.

It's November

and here's what's up. I began building a farm table for my kitchen using plans from a blog that my sister loves. Here's a photo after the initial steps. At this time I was cooking, building, grading, and preparing food for the freezer. I've been freezing soups and greens - bok choi, chard, radish greens, turnip greens, and some other special things that I don't know what to call but I bought them at the market. Can you see all the activity in the photo?

And here are some radishes and bok choi I harvested today.

Peacherine

Here's a little Joplin to start the day.

Other delights

Every day I pick something from the garden and eat it with a meal. Here are some photos of a few fall gems, including bok choi, mustard, spinach, and radishes. And in case you haven't noticed, my blog posts photos in the reverse order from how I upload them.

Almost November

....and my garden is still heartily producing. I already pulled up most of my tomato plants, but as you can see here those still in the ground were still blooming and producing. I picked this whole bowl of tomatoes to make either green tomato salsa or green catsup. I'll decide later this week. Alack, I ended up pulling the remaining tomato plants a few hours after taking these photos. The temperature is expected to be in the low 40s/high 30s this week, so it was only a matter of time. I thanked them tremendously for their offerings in my garden this year before pulling them up and burying them in the compost pile.

West Virginia Storytelling Festival

Last week I was one of the featured tellers at the WV Storytelling Festival at Jackson's Mill. My partner for the event was Ilene Evans, who you see in the last photo here. It was shot in the LIvestock Barn. This less-than-desirable venue was one of the only buildings large enough to hold all of the children that came. We told to 1200 students over two days. The other building is much nicer, but I didn't get any photos there...so I had to borrow some from Granny Sue's blog. The other two tellers this year were Granny Sue Holstein and children's book author Marc Harshman. Granny, Ilene, and I have told together before. And Marc was one of the judges of the Liars' Contest waaaaaay back when I first started.

Link to DP song

I see that the link didn't make it on. Check this song out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiUjYoa6dvU

The hocket I mentioned begins around 2:36.

Fat Red Carrots and a golden beet

...can't wait to eat those greens!

Dirty Projectors

Kristy Ch. and I went to see the Dirty Projectors at the 9:30 this past week. First of all, it was great to get into the city. Second, we had just opened an art show hours earlier - with Karen G. the three of us make up collabAttack. And third, the Dirty Projectors blew my mind.

Opening for them was Owen Pallett - formerly Final Fantasy. He was great. It takes a brilliant mind to come up with looping music that works to well.

Then the DPs - I was blown away. Their drummer played the set harder than I've every seen anyone do it. I really thought he was going to break the drums and cymbals at times. It was awesome.
The singers were dead on, and they did things I didn't think were possible. They must all have perfect pitch, because their cold starts on quartal harmonies were unbelievable. And then their trademark hocketing was wild. For a great example, listen to "Remade Horizon." The first part of the vocal hocket begins at 2:37.



I saw it happen. It is humanly possible. And then there is Dave Longstreth, who is a madman and a genius. I can't wait to get more of their music and see them again.
Here's a photo from the show. We were maybe thirty feet from them, although this photo makes it look farther.

Red & Orange

Another Photo

Here's another photo to show where the fruit actually goes in the machine.

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Cider

Here is the finished product - a half gallon of great cider. I had several beautiful jars of this sweet drink. It literally does not get any fresher than this.

Cider Day #2

We had to break at one point to go collect more apples and pears. Here we are gathering fruit. In one photo you can see me up in the tree - I scaled it to shake out pears from the top.

Cider Day

Karen G and I joined Amanda and James for the first cider press of the season. Here are photos of us using the press. I think we pressed about ten gallons total of apple, pear, and mixed cider. Amanda and James keep bees, too, so toward the end of the pressing bees were on everything. This was a good lesson in coexisting with bees. They are really just curious and looking for sweets, and once you get used to them you can pick up a tool or pan with all kinds of bees on them without any fear.

Let's All Gather Round the Ol' Packard

So here's a movie of me playing my new organ. It is new to me, but was built circa 1892. Its a Packard and what a beaut she is. In the video I'm playing one of my favorite songs from Mary Poppins, which I think is fitting for the sound of the instrument. I made another video from the other angle and even lit candles in the candle holders to show how it would have originally been played (it was, after all, built before electric lights were ubiquitous) but that video wasn't as good. The downside to this video is that you get a lot of pumping noise. Hey, I understand that this video looks all Alice-In-Wonderland and such, what with the giant chair that causes me to bend over to play..and the fact that there is an organ in my house...but I think that is par for the course of my life.

County Fair

Ah yes, the county fair pies. First you see peach pie, which won second place and was delicious. You can see the flavor just oozing out, which was a reduction of peach syrup and brandy.

Then you see apple pie, which did not place but was still very delicious. The filling was similar to that of one you used to be able to get out at the Tradewell in Lavalette. It makes me want a Red Faygo or an RC.

And here is a photo to show you the insides of the purple carrots.

More Garden Gems

So here we have some more goodies from the garden. First you see purple carrots. They have a brilliant orange hiding under the skin with a bright yellow center. I tasted the first one - wow! What a flavor. Very rich, crisp carrot flavor that bites you back. I'm glad I have more of these in the ground and a new batch coming!

Then you see some greens, which include wild rocket and swiss chard. Here the chard is red but I also have pink and yellow. And I threw in a couple of special nun beans for good measure. They have lots of nicknames - holy spirit bean being one of them - because of this special mark on the navel of the bean which looks like a nun praying. Or a dove, soldier, baker, or many other things depending on how you look. Click the photo for a more appetizing view.

Here's the first volunteer tomato to ripen. I'm not sure what these are, but there are about 20 of them on the plants and they have a small donut shape to them. This one was tasty. I also have German Lunchbox tomatoes - small and pink, hot and sweet. There are about 30 of them on the plants but they are also taking their time ripening.

Garden Gems

Here you see some coriander seed and some little purple potatoes that were dangling at the bottom of one of my potato plants.

A few days later I was tilling the soil so I could add compost to then plant veg for the fall. Lo, there were more potatoes chilling out in the ground! Apparently they don't just stay under the plant.

Here is a large baby bok choy that I will probably eat tonight for dinner.

First llamas, then ducks

And here was another surprise in the yard - ducks. I came home from telling stories in McWhorter, WV to find some ducks outside of the back door. This is where my neighbor's cat stays and therefore the lawn doesn't get mowed here. I figure that there were some nice insects lurking about for the ducks.

Phone Updates

I couldn't figure out why the leaves on my potato plants were disappearing - if deer were to blame then why were they only eating those plants? Well, I found the culprit.
Here's a rumtopf update. So far: cherries, strawberries, gooseberries, wine raspberries, apricots, red currants, and now shirot plums.

On 4 July I was on my back porch and I could hear bells - lots of tiny bells. I figured I should see what was going on so I put my book down and went around the house to find this:

Llamas in my yard - eating the shrubs!!

Here's the replica of James Rumsey's steamboat in the 4 July parade:



And here are the llamas in the parade. Their owners parked outside of my house for the parade lineup.

A Lesson for the Future

I'm pretty proud that I've been able to make some significant changes in my life the past few years. I cut out trans fats and artificial sweeteners, I only purchase meat from the local butcher who serves locally raised pastured meat, I'm learning to grow vegetables, I took most of the plastic out of my home, and so on. But there are always lessons to learn. Here's the lesson I learned today - when you over-winter vegetables in a cold-cellar or root-cellar, don't forget to check to make sure you've used them all when the winter is over. Recently I've been feeling sick in my home as if I had a cat or lots of fresh flowers inside (neither of which apply). Then I began smelling a musty smell and no matter how much I cleaned everything it persisted and has - imagine this - gotten stronger in the midst of this heat wave. I found the solution - two acorn squash and a pumpkin, stored under the stairs, now rotting and growing a lovely culture of their own (to my sister - this is not like kombucha). I'm in the process of cleaning EVERYTHING out from under the stairs which is now covered in a red liquid, mold, or the psychological invisible coating of something dangerous (thanks Mom). More later.

Senate

I went to DC to see Senator Byrd lie in the Senate before being airlifted to Charleston, but unfortunately there is no visitor parking at the Capitol or the Capitol Visitor Center. Ironic? So after driving around for a very long time I finally found a parking meter. Get this: in DC a quarter will purchase seven and a half minutes of time at the meter. How much for a nickel, you might ask? One and a half minutes. I'd say that unless the ticketer is within sight, don't even bother inserting a nickel for that whopping amount of time. This is why I never drive into the city (combined with the traffic signals on the sides of the road instead of being overhead). Anyway, after emptying out the silver change from my car, I managed to buy twenty seven minutes of time in which I ran to the back side of the Capitol just in time to see the casket being brought down the Senate stairs and placed into the hearse. Here is a photo of the Senate house just after he left.

Garlic and Berries

I could wait no longer - - and dug up some garlic from the garden. Perhaps I dug these heads up just a bit too soon...they are formed but a tad small. The garlic I dug up today was larger and they have all been delicious. Also, I went foraging for berries today. I picked a quart and used half of them for a custard pie I made with a golden oreo crust. It was quite tasty. Here you see the other half, some of which will go into the rumtopf.

Rumtopf!!!!

Hey gang! After hearing friends recount the story of Lynne Rossetto Kasper's intriguing description of a rumtopf, I have researched the magical rumtopf and have decided to make one. Here's a photo. I just added some gooseberries which caused the splashes on the side of the jar. I hope I'm doing it right, because as Dad said, "[it] will either turn out to be incredible, or you will poison yourself." I'm paraphrasing. Essentially the rumtopf is seasonal fruits juiced in sugar for an hour or so and then put in the pot and covered with rum. This continues through the year and then sits some time before wintertime consumption (again, Dad commented, "Does your fantasy of this thing include fairies?") So far, "meine Rumtopf hat" strawberries, cherries, and gooseberries.

Potato Flowers

The potato plants are flowering - see?